


John

by zade



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Murphy is young, Reference to Torture, made up character past, takes place during early season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade/pseuds/zade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you remember me?” Murphy asks, sneering, suddenly furious that he is so easily forgotten, that he has never really mattered to Bellamy.</p><p>Bellamy snorts and turns his head lazily back to face Murphy.  “From like five days ago?  When you killed two of our people, shot Raven and took off like the coward you are?  Kind of hard to forget.”</p><p>“No, dumbass.  I mean on the Ark.”  Murphy rolls his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Somebody on tumblr mentioned how young Murphy looks when he's clean, so I wrote a thing and made up more of past for him</p>
            </blockquote>





	John

They are chained at opposite ends of the room. Murphy stares at Bellamy, but Bellamy is staring off into the distance, like he has suddenly gained the ability see through walls and can figure out why Raven has stopped screaming.

Which is fine. Murphy has spent enough time alone to be comfortable in his own head. His mind drifts, past the guilt and the blood and tension resting just beneath his skin, always threatening to erupt, to early times, if not better. He thinks about Mbege, about their friendship in the Sky Box, before, about the Ark and familiar hum of machinery he’s begun to miss, of the first time he met Bellamy Blake, and how, as always, he is the only one left who remembers his story.

“Do you remember me?” Murphy asks, sneering, suddenly furious that he is so easily forgotten, that he has never really mattered to Bellamy.

Bellamy snorts and turns his head lazily back to face Murphy. “From like five days ago? When you killed two of our people, shot Raven and took off like the coward you are? Kind of hard to forget.”

“No, dumbass. I mean on the Ark.” Murphy rolls his eyes.

Bellamy laughs. “Did you hit your head? I met you on the ground.”

His righteous anger leaves him like a hemorrhage, gushing out of him until he’s left with an empty, sick feeling. “You were a guard. You caught me stealing food, and you let me go.” 

Bellamy stares at him the same way he stared at the wall, like he can see through him, into him. “I was a guard in training. I…didn’t know that was you. He just told me his name was—”

“John,” Murphy interrupts. “Nobody but Mbege called me Murphy until…” He laughs, hysteric, wounded. “Until the ground.” Murphy stares down at his hands, but folds them into fists so he doesn’t have to see the swollen blood and places where his nails haven’t grown back yet. “You told me I needed to get better at stealing or find a different pastime.”

It irks him that long before the ground, Bellamy was always the white knight, and he was always nothing.

Bellamy is still considering him with slight distaste. “Did you?”

“Get better?” Murphy laughs. “Well I didn’t get arrested for a year after that, so I’d say.”

Bellamy swallows, something like regret flickering across his features. “You never told me why.”

“My mom died owing Nygel a few favors, so I owed Nygel a few favors. She made it hard for me to get food, and Mbege’s dad would trade his rations for moonshine, so we’d steal food and split it between the two of us.” Which was true, more or less. Real life was always more complicated, but he figured Bellamy didn’t really care.

Bellamy shook his head. “I thought you were much younger then, and that was only, what, a year and half ago?” 

Murphy fidgets.

“Murphy, how old are you?” Bellamy demands, practically growling and leaning towards Murphy like he can bridge the gap between them by will alone.

“Old enough,” which Murphy immediately regrets. Nothing, he has learned, makes you seem younger than saying you’re old enough. “I’m seventeen. Probably. By now.” At Bellamy’s incredulous look, he explains, sheepishly, “I lost track of the days.”

“Fuck,” Bellamy says, and collapses back against the wall, closing his eyes. “I didn’t know.”

Murphy scoffs, turning his head away, too, but always keeping his eyes locked on Bellamy. “Would it have stopped you from kicking the box out from under me?”

“I don’t know. Yes? No? I don’t know, okay?” He tugs angrily at his restraints, like he could pull himself free. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I did what I had to do.”

Raven screams again and Murphy flinches. He tries not to let everything remind him of his three day stint in Grounder hell, his mind likes to test him, throwing unexpected images behind his eyes at the slightly implication of a reminder. 

Bellamy shakes his head, lost in his own thoughts.

Murphy closes his eyes, tries to get the scent of his own burnt flesh out of his memory. “Don’t tell me I’m too young for you now,” Murphy says, because what is he without fangs.

Bellamy snorts. “Give it a year.”

Murphy opens his eyes, catches Bellamy licking his lips. “Maybe I will.” And he could. Not like he has much else to do. For all he knows, he’ll be spending the next year in handcuffs, rotting in a new prison (which would make it his third in a year, incredible, really).

“We’ll see,” Bellamy says after a moment, then settles back, closes his eyes and pretends to sleep.

Murphy purses his lips, then smiles. He’s more stubborn by far, than even Bellamy. He can wait. He settles back too, as if he can sleep in this position or get comfortable against the metal sheeting of the Ark. He could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> come bother me on [tumblr](racetrackthehiggins.tumblr.com)


End file.
